Congress Considers Missouri’s Proposed State Constitution

The report considered the objection which had been urged to Missouri’s ready admission.

Continuing The Missouri Compromise,
our selection from The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 16 by James Albert Woodburm published in 1905. The selection is presented in ten easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Missouri Compromise.

Time: 1820

Missouri’s Constitution, upon its presentation, was referred to a committee of which Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina, was chairman. Within a week the committee reported in favor of admission, proposing to effect this by a simple resolution, “That the State of Missouri shall be, and is hereby declared to be, one of the United States of America, and is admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the original States.” The report considered the objection which had been urged to Missouri’s ready admission, although this objection had not yet come under the cognizance of Congress.

Mr. Lowndes, in a notable speech advocating the immediate recognition of Missouri as a State, held that the enabling act of the former session was a complete act of admission, that the time and circumstances which made a people a State were the time at which its people formed a constitution, and the act of forming it. This view, Mr. Lowndes contended, was according to precedent. In the case of Indiana, December n, 1816, the practice of a sub sequent declaration of admission first occurred, and this declaration was but a formal notification to the other States that a new member had been admitted. The act of the last session which had been agreed to by the compromise after so long a struggle did not merely give to the people of Missouri the right to propose a constitution, but it conferred on that people all the rights of the proudest and oldest States. This is clearly seen, urged Mr. Lowndes, from the fact that while the act was under discussion Mr. Taylor, of New York, the leader of the restrictionists, had moved to insert an amendment providing that if the constitution of the new State “shall be approved by Congress, the said Terri tory shall be admitted as a State upon the same footing as the original States.” This amendment was voted down, implying that Missouri would be admitted without such condition. We had given Missouri the right of self-government, and we cannot now take it from her.

Mr. Lowndes would not undertake to decide whether or not the objectionable clause was constitutional. He would leave that for the Supreme Court to determine. He was aware that a very large majority of the free blacks of the United States were not considered citizens in their respective States, and this pro vision of Missouri might be construed as intending to exempt from its provision such of the blacks as were citizens in other States. A similar provision discriminating against free colored persons was in the Constitution of Delaware. No one contended that Congress could sit in judgment on the various constitutional provisions of the old States. The States, old and new, must be equal, and why should Missouri be singled out for invidious distinction? The question should be left to the judiciary as the proper tribunal to interpret the law. When Tennessee presented herself for admission, having formed a constitution without an enabling act of Congress, Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, objected, on the ground that the Constitution of Tennessee was incompatible with that of the United States; Mr. Baldwin replied that “if there should be things in the Constitution of Tennessee not compatible with the Constitution of the United States it was well known that the Constitution of the United States would be para mount; they can therefore be of no effect.” In that case the question of constitutional law was left to the supreme judicial tribunal.

Mr. Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, replied to Mr. Lowndes. He did not consider that a Territory became an independent and sovereign State at the time it formed a constitution. Congress could not admit a State by anticipation. Congress could not bind itself to the admission of a State so as to have no choice but to accept such a constitution as that State chose to offer. Giving authority to the people of a Territory to form a State constitution did not admit them into the Union, unless their constitution should be such as the people of the United States, through their representatives, thought fit to accept as a fundamental rule of government. If it be true that Missouri has already the ” rights of the oldest and proudest States,” why are we deliberating? Why is this resolution now under consideration? Why are the Senators and the Representative from Missouri kept waiting at our doors until they learn the fate of this resolution? Why was Missouri’s Constitution submitted to a committee? Why has that committee made a report which we are now discussing? And why did the committee consider it necessary to go into an examination of a particular clause of that constitution, pointing out a mode by which Congress might relieve itself from the task of deciding on its constitutionality by leaving it to the judiciary? The reason assigned by the committee in the “whereas” of the resolution is that Missouri has formed a constitution in conformity with our act of the last session. How could the committee know this?

In the act authorizing the formation of this constitution were found two limitations — that the constitution should be republican, and that it should not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. Is it not indispensable before passing a resolution like this that the members of this House should be satisfied that these requisitions have been complied with? Can it be said that Congress has parted with the power of looking into the Constitution of Missouri when it had expressly prescribed conditions which should be indispensable to its acceptance? If Missouri is now involved in difficulty it is the fault of the people of Missouri. This is a difficulty which they themselves have created; the failure to fulfil the compact is on the part of the people of that Territory. Would the people of Missouri think more highly of Congress were we to yield to them on this occasion? How much better it would be for Congress at once to take its ground and refuse to sanction the constitution of any State which is in any respect repugnant to that of the United States. Would anyone pretend, if this constitution instead of being faulty in one particular were faulty from beginning to end, that Missouri would be entitled to admission ? Yet the surrender of our right to decide in one particular involves the whole. With respect to the proposition to turn the question over to the judiciary, Mr. Sergeant said that he must declare, with the greatest respect for that judicial body, that he could not con sent, on a question which was properly presented for his own decision, to say, “Let the question sleep till some humble individual, some poor citizen, shall come forward and claim a decision of it.” He would not leave to some individual to do what it was the duty of Congress to do.

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